Gifted
by Rubek
Summary: Their world was destroyed, devoured by zombie like monsters that appeared in their world over night. Lavinia and Rowan, two gifted humans and a small group of regular humans are all that stand between the total wipe out of humans...but will they be enough? And what is the connection between their world and this Spirit World?


**Note: If you notice any spelling mistakes, don't understand certain things or think it can be improved please tell me. This is kind of a basic start so don't expect too much depth to it. I will be going more into the story, the whereabouts, the pasts and stuff in the next chapter, this was just a starter. :) - Rubek.**

Our story starts with the dead rising from their graves. Our loved ones returning from the earth, jealous of our living status and wanting to change that, they would hound us down in groups, sometimes in groups of hundreds, before they would tear into our flesh, eating the essence that made us human. Maybe they hoped that if they ate enough, they would be able to live again, maybe they hated the living so much that merely seeing one would drive them into a feeding frenzy. Whatever the reason behind their killing spree, they quickly devoured most of the human population within the first few months of their existence being made public. They would ignore our screams of pain, ignore the terrified gleam in our eyes and continue to eat muscle and organs until there was nothing left of us, just bones surrounded by a puddle of blood. Sometimes, if the living were truly unlucky, they would get bitten but run away from their fate of being eaten alive, but they did not run away from their deaths, they would soon turn into the same, brainless creatures that simply want to eat every human alive.

This was a world with no hope, and yet we still fought. Our human nature made sure we always fought, but we could not do that alone, where would we get help? People with strange abilities had come, but most had disappeared within days of them trying to quell the rise of the dead. A select few, however, remained and they fought alongside the humans. Using their gifts to try and bring humanity back to the world. Alas, their job was a hard one, and even they could not do it with their numbers dwindling, they needed help from stronger people, from people who destroy monsters like these on a daily basis.

They needed demons.

A small group of humans and gifted humans worked their way to an underground lab which was rumoured to be the place where all the mutants were created. However, they still needed help. It is this group of people that this story follows.

"Lavinia, the mutants have broken through the fifth gate! Close and reinforce the fourth gate with electrical charges before they can damage the shields!" A strong but tired and frightened voice shouted over a small radio in a dark room which was followed by snarling and groaning from the mutants, small bleeping blue lights dotted around the room, each computer screen showing shuffling bodies groaning and slowly decaying. A girl swirled around on her seat, turning away from the screen that showed the fourth gate slowly coming to life with the buzzing of electricity and she jumped up then ran toward the computer screens to watch one of her best friends hiding from the mutants. She pushed her ginger hair that had fallen from its confinements of the hair bobble from her face, tucking it behind her ear whilst biting her nip as a nervous habit.

"What about you, Stephen?!" she shouted down the other end of the radio, her eyes widening in shock and sadness. She watched as he clambered higher up onto a cupboard like protrusion in the wall that was once used to store the remains of the human experiments, the once white halls were swarmed with at least seventy of the mutants, blood oozed from their limbs leaving a trail over the white, tiled floors as they clambered toward her dark haired friend, he pulled his legs toward his chest as he watched the mutants raise their decaying hands, hoping to grip onto him and pull him down only to fall short of their target. Lavinia began searching frantically in her brain for an escape tactic that could bring Stephen back to their base.

"It's too late for me! I have already been bitten! You know the rules, Lavinia….spare no one who might have the virus" His voice became softer and his breathing became heavier the more the fear of death embraced him. His eyes, which were slowly becoming a dull grey looked up toward the camera that he knew Lavinia was looking through and Lavinia swallowed thickly, the heavy feeling of loss was weighing her down making her unable to think straight.

"I am sending the disk I found to you now; I hope it comes to good use!" He coughed once, pressing the buttons on a small device before a loud beeping noise echoed throughout the room Lavinia stood. However, the beeping was not important to her, what was important was finding a way to stop this madness.

"I am going to save most of the cliché talk, Lavinia. Just promise me one thing…" Lavinia began typing furiously into the computers, her gloved fingers pressing the keys in an intricate sequence that would have baffled most of her crew, the key sequence sent electrical surges through the small wires in the floors that she had placed there before the mutants claimed it as their own, stunning only a few of them, causing their limbs to explode in a spray of blood.

"Lavinia, stop….Save the energy of the computer, just PLEASE promise me one thing." He let his head fall back onto the wall, his breathing becoming harsher and Lavinia let a small sob escape her lips.

"Anything, Stephen, you know I'd do anything for you" Her voice shook as she realised what this promise would mean. She began to shake, her hands gripping onto the side of the computer as her legs began to lose their strength. Slowly she sat on the large chair behind her as his voice echoed over the radio for the last time.

"Protect Rowan. She means the world to me, and I know you think of her like a sister. You might come against some hard times together, but promise me you will stay together and you will keep her safe." His voice lost its weariness, his eyes turned determined and strong and Lavinia closed her eyes, not allowing her tears to escape her eyes. She took a deep breath, pulling back her emotions and shoving them into some dark, mysterious place inside her that ensured that she could not feel any pain. When Lavinia opened her eyes once more, an empty feeling had encased her.

"I promise, good-"

"Don't say goodbye, because I am going to haunt your ass! And I swear if you do one thing that I don't like I will scare the shit out of you!"

"Oh please, you couldn't scare me when you are alive. What makes you think you can scare me when you are dead?" They both chuckled, spending their last moment sharing their usual dark humoured banter. Lavinia watched with empty eyes as Stephen pulled a small gun from his pouch, closed his eyes and pressed the gun against his head, his eyes squeezed tighter and the mutants seemed to grow louder as if they knew what he was going to do and they hoped his body would fall below so they could feast on his already dead body.

"Stay safe" he whispered before pressing the trigger, his head snapping back with the force of the blast from his gun, his body grew slack as he stayed situated against the wall, his blood slowly dripping down onto the floor causing the mutants below to paw at the wall, their tongues lapping up the red liquid, ignoring the gun as it clattered noisily to the ground between them. Lavinia pressed the off button on the screen, staring at her dark reflection as she tried to hold back her emotions which were slowly growing out of control. Everything seemed to slow down completely around her and she stared into the eyes of her reflection, her hair was messed from sleepless nights and constant frustrated hair tugging whenever another one of their friends fell to these beasts. Buzzing drowned at most of the noise around her, the computers no longer beeped at her, the zombies no longer groaned, snarled and banged at the fences trying to get to them. The only thing she heard was the sound of the large, automatic door opening behind her, allowing a petite woman to run through them, her eyes wide in terror, her mouth open in a cry and she ran toward the computer and Lavinia, slowly, her friends voice broke through her trance

"-phen! –tephen! STEPHEN!" Lavinia shook away the daze and was startled by her red headed friend to fall onto her knees in front of her, the black skirt that she wore was short, and reaching just mid-thigh and the edges were frayed from this war. She wore a simple red tank top was covered by a green army jacket that was given to her by Stephen and on her feet she wore red, ankle converse. Her outfit was made for the party; the party that she planned on the night these monsters attacked and ruined the 19 year old girls' life forever

"_Hurry up Rowan! How long does it take to straighten your hair?" Lavinia shouted, knocking on the door to her bathroom. Rowan hated her naturally curly hair, she always used to get bullied when she was little and she refused to listen to Lavinia who always said it was perfect. She constantly straightened her red hair and even though she did look beautiful with that as well, it did not frame her face the way the curling did, it removed her look of innocence._

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Rowan whined, opening the door quickly and stepping out, her large black heels clicking against the floor as she turned around to close the door again. Lavinia stepped away from the bathroom door, rolling her eyes at her best friend and walked into the kitchen, grabbed her small bag and then the keys from a hook near the front door before jamming the keys into the lock and waiting for her friend to join her.

"_You had best bring flat shoes, Rowan! Because I am not carrying you around when you start complaining that your feet hurt!" Lavinia shouted to her best friend, she heard the clicking of the heels speed up as she rounded the corner in a jog._

"Good idea! Waaait, you are not going out wearing that right?" Rowan asked, looking disapprovingly down at the outfit Lavinia had sort of chosen. She wore dark brown short shorts that Rowan had forced her to wear and knee high black combat boots that she always wore for comfort. On her torso she wore a simple green bat winged shirt, the sleeves dropping past her fingers.

"Yup! I didn't want to go to this party in the first place, you know I hate parties. All those loud, dancing people that just want to get you in their bed"

"No one will want you in their bed if you look like a man" Rowan chuckled, used to her friend's antisocial behaviour. She was amazed that they became such close friends with Lavinias lack of trust in people.

"_Exaaaaaactly!" Lavinia sang, opening the door quickly and standing to the side, waiting for Rowan to walk toward her. Rowan reached down, grabbing her pair of red converse and placing them into the bag before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a necklace._

"Here, have this. You should recognise the symbol" Rowan said, handing her the pendant before grabbing the keys and walking out toward the car. Lavinia looked down to the pendant and smiled, it was a druid symbol, the druid tree of life. Although only Rowan was the druid, Lavinia was a Pagan and she respected the druid beliefs a lot so this was a gift that Lavinia would always wear. She clasped the necklace around her neck before running toward the car to greet her smiling friend.

_Then the monsters came…._

Lavinia touched the necklace around her neck, coming out of her reminiscing and smiling slightly before reaching toward her best friend and pulling her into a hug whose body was shaking with the sobs that were engulfing her. Slowly, she began to calm down and wiped the tears from her eyes before she pulled away from Lavinia to walk up to the computer screen, turning it back on and turning away quickly before she could see the dead body of her past lover.

"Rowan….I really am so sorry. He was bitten, I couldn't do anything" Lavinia stuttered but was interrupted by Rowan shaking her head.

"It wasn't your fault, don't ever blame yourself. It was those…those monsters that did this. I promise I will kill whoever created those things" Rowan looked Lavinia in the eyes, her crimson red hair curled down her back in ringlets and her pale, tired face made her determined green eyes stand out more.

Lavinia nodded once before standing up, turning toward the computers once again to continue with her job.  
"Don't do that Lavinia" Rowan whispered, her back facing her ginger friend. Lavinia turned to look at her back, confusion written over her face.  
"You always lock away your emotions, always close yourself off. It used to be me and you against the world but recently it's just becoming you. I love you like a sister, don't leave me to fight those monsters on my own" Rowan mumbled, quickly walking out of the quiet room and leaving Lavinia to dwell on her best friends words.

The small crowd of people chattered noisily in a large white room, seats were placed here and there and guns were set upon the tables. Each and every person in the room seemed happy, but their eyes showed fear. Any sudden noise would cause their hands to twitch for their guns and for their eyes to dart toward the doors, thinking that the mutants had somehow managed to get through their defences.

Rowan stepped up onto a table, looked around the room until her eyes fell upon her best friend, Lavinia, who was sat by herself watching as she prepared herself for the public speech, Lavinia nodded once, that being the only encouragement Rowan needed to get the attention of her crew.

"Alright! Everyone! I have some news" her voice boomed over the noise that the others had made, silencing their conversations. All weary and scared eyes looked toward their leader.

"As you have all probably already heard, we have lost our best fighter, Stephen, to those monsters out there." Thick silence was all that followed and the desperate eyes of everyone watched their leader, begging for her to come up with a way to end their suffering.  
"Alas, his trip out to those labs were not in vain, He recovered and successfully delivered a disk of important information and upon Lavinia reading it, we discovered that the original monsters, the first ones to turn are controlled by microchips that send out a strange energy like substance that infects clean people-"

"So how are we supposed to stop this!? At this rate we are all dead! WE HAVE NO HOPE!" A young boy shouted, his fist hitting against the table as a snarl tore from his throat out of both fear and anger. Rowan and Lavinia watched as their crew grew agitated, demanding solutions to their problems and their voices grew louder.

"Please! Everyone calm down!" Rowan pleaded only to be ignored by the rest of the people shouting over her.

Lavinia stood up quickly, her chair scratching against the tiled floor causing everyone to once again, go silent as they watched Lavinia walk toward the table where Rowan was stood, sitting on the edge of the table and setting her odd, green and blue (heterochromia*) eyes onto the people in front of her.

"We do have hope because we are alive. We are so close to discovering the reason behind these mutants. The death of Stephen was….. A tragic one, but this is not the end of our hope. He would not want us to feel lost without him; he would want us to take the things that he taught us and succeed in winning this war." Rowan watched as the morale of the group began to rise, they looked toward each other nodding. Then she cleared her throat

"We have discovered that the mutants are controlled by small microchips that were expertly placed in their brains. Lavinia has been working hard to decipher the code that has been encrypted into them, but so far no cure has come up, which means we still need to kill those buggers like we always do. Just please, never lose hope" Everyone nodded, quietly surrendering to the fact that they were getting no closer to the cure; Lavinia smiled up at her, gripped her hand and helped her jump from the table. However, to everyone's shock, a loud clap was heard through the room, followed by another one shortly after. Soon realising that someone was clapping, Lavinia and Rowan whipped around to face the corner of the room only to see something they didn't quite expect.

A group of four men was stood there, the male clapping was tall and he wore a green school suit. His black hair was slick back and his chocolate brown eyes danced over each and every person in the room before stopping on the women that he guessed were in charge.

"Yeah! Great! We are all so close to curing these creatures! But why not let us kill them for ya? I am Yusuke Urameshi and I will be your mutant exterminator, no charge!"


End file.
